2009-06-25

HSM Performance Pack for Mastercam 3.x

HSM Performance Pack for Mastercam

HSM Performance Pack for Mastercam is a powerful solution for all Mastercam users who demand high speed machining capabilities. HSM Performance Pack extends the capabilities of your exsting Mastercam system with a wide range of new features, as well as reducing the calculation and machining time.

HSM Performance Pack smooths the paths of both cutting moves and retracts wherever possible to keep a more continuous machine tool motion. The result is a high quality, gouge free tool path. This translates to increased surface quality, less wear on your cutters, and a longer life for your machine tools.

Below is an outline of the strategies included in HSM Performance Pack for Mastercam. All operations feature tool holder collision checking, and work with tapered tools.

Roughing strategiesPocket clearing

Pocket is the main roughing strategy for clearing large quantities of material effectively. The part is cleared layer by layer with smooth offset contours maintaining climb milling throughout the operation. To avoid plunging, the tool ramps down along a helical path between levels.

To maintain a high feed rate, and thereby reducing the machining time, sharp changes of direction are avoided by smoothing the tool motion.

You will not find a faster or more reliable roughing implementation on the market today!

Rest roughingThe most efficient roughing is achieved by following the work of a big tool with a smaller tool in the areas that have not been cleared by the previous operation.

To achieve this HSM Performance Pack uses a stock model of the remaining material to avoid air-cutting. The stock model can be generated by a previous operation, or supplied by the user.

For your really big parts, you can perform three or more rest roughing stages with decreasing tool size.

Finishing strategiesParallel passes

Parallel passes is one of the most widely used finishing strategies. The passes are created in the XY-plane and follow the surface in the Z-direction. You can choose their angle as well as their stepover in the horizontal direction. The passes can be linked either in a zig-zag pattern or uni-directional.

Parallel passes are best suited for shallow areas and down milling. To automatically detect shallow areas, the machining can be limited to a maximum angle between the tool tip and the surface.

By selecting the down milling option, tool deflection can be minimized when machining complex surfaces.

Contour passes

Contour passes creates tool paths with constant Z-height along the contours of the part.

Contour passes is the best strategy for finishing steep walls. As with parallel passes, the machining can be limited by a tool contact angle, too keep the generated tool path away from shallow areas.

The cutting paths are smoothed in the corners by a horizontal maximum deviation rather than a radius. This means that sharp corners tend to have very small smoothing radii in them, because the arc would otherwise pull back too far from the corner. This represents a compromise between the requirements of high speed machining, and the need to stay within the specified tolerance.

Horizontal clearing

The horizontal clearing strategy automatically detects all the flat areas of the part and clears them with an offsetting path.

When the flat area is shelved above the surrounding areas, the cutter moves beyond the outline to clean the edges.

Scallop / Constant stepover

Scallop finishing creates passes that are at a constant distance from one another by offsetting inwards along the surface. The passes will follow sloping and vertical walls to maintain the stepover.

Although scallop finishing can be used to finish an entire part, it is most commonly used for rest finishing, following a combination of contour and parallel passes. The rest area is defined by specifying the dimensions of the previous tool.

Like the other finishing strategies, machining can be limited by a contact angle range.

Pencil tool pathPencil

The pencil strategy creates tool paths along internal corners and fillets with small radii removing material that no other strategy can reach.

It is even possible to make pencil paths along fillets that are larger than the tool corner radius by setting the overthickness parameter.

Pencil - Multiple passes

Pencil paths can form the basis of many other machining operations. You can either make a limited number of offsets from a pencil path to clear a fillet...

Collapsed Pencil

...or make an unlimited number of offset paths in order to finish the entire surface from the corners outwards.

Shortest path is the shortest possible gouge free path moving in all three axes.

Using this strategy minimizes the amount of air-cutting. This not only reduces the machining time, but also reduces the wear on the cutter, by minimizing the thermal shock caused by the repeated cooling and heating of the cutter and the risk of tool breakage because of the changing load on the tool when it stops and starts cutting.

Minimum retraction

Minimum retraction is straight up to the lowest height where the tool is clear of the part by a safe distance.